NEWS New Faces

We are very excited to welcome a new member to our Words & Pictures editorial team! Please meet our new After The Whirlwind editor, Lui Sit. 

Hello! I’m excited to be joining the SCBWI volunteer gang as the new After The Whirlwind editor for Words & Pictures. SCWBI was the first organisation I joined when I decided to take my writing seriously seven years ago. I’m glad I did because all going well, I will have two books coming out in 2025: my debut middle grade novel and another MG project I am working on with Storymix. Watch this space!

Sometimes I think my work life to date has been one long, eclectic rehearsal for my life as a writer. I’ve dressed as a koala to help fundraise against eradication of native forests, served ice cream to the richest man in Australia and dragged groups of dancers round the UK, performing in unlikely venues. 

Image courtesy of Rebecca Cresta Photography

More pertinent to this role, I’ve worked in publishing as a project editor for trade journals and within the publishing team at Shelter UK. The bulk of my career has been in project, program and events management in the arts, charity and higher education. I have never stayed in a job for more than two years. The end result of this occupational restlessness is that I have accumulated much material, ripe for fiction.

Alongside SCWBI, I’ve been supported on my writing adventures by organisational schemes including London Writers Award, Megaphone, Harper Collins Author Academy, Writementor, Write Now and others. In addition to middle grade, I also write non-fiction, memoir and adult short stories but my sweet spot is middle grade, always and forever. I look forward to hearing all your writing stories - please bear with me while I find my feet!

*Header by Tita Berredo

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Stephanie Cotela is the Network News & Events Editor for Words & Pictures Magazine.